The Rudolf Steiner Archive

3. Epistemology Since Kant

[ 1 ] All subsequent epistemologists have been more or less influenced by Kant's erroneous questioning. In Kant, the view that all objects given to us are our conceptions appears as the result of his a priorism. Since then, it has become the principle and starting point of almost all epistemological systems. What is initially and immediately certain to us is solely the proposition that we have knowledge of our ideas; this has become an almost universally held conviction of philosophers. G. E. Schulze claimed as early as 1792 in his "Anesidemus" that all our knowledge is mere imagination and that we can never go beyond our imagination. Schopenhauer, with his own philosophical pathos, takes the view that the lasting gain of Kant's philosophy is the view that the world is "my imagination", Ed. v. Hartmann finds this sentence so inviolable that in his essay "Critical Foundation of Transcendental Realism" he presupposes only those readers at all who have critically freed themselves from the naive identification of their perceptual image with the thing in itself and have brought to evidence the absolute heterogeneity of an object of contemplation given by the act of representation as the subjective-ideal content of consciousness and of a thing existing in and for itself, independent of the act of representation and the form of consciousness, i.e. those who are convinced of the existence of a thing in and for itself. i.e. those who are imbued with the conviction that the totality of what is directly given to us are conceptions. ^{16Hartmann, Kritische Grundlegung, Preface p.10 .} In his last epistemological ^{??"In seiner letzten erkenntnistheoretischen Publikation": Eduard von Hartmann, Transzendentaler Idealismus und Realismus mit besonderer Rücksicht auf das Kausalproblem; Zeitschrift für Philosophie und philosophische Kritik, Vol. 99, Leipzig 189 1, pp. 18 3-209} publication, however, Hartmann also seeks to justify this view. Our further remarks will show how an unprejudiced epistemology must approach such a justification. Otto Liebmann states the following as the sacrosanct supreme principle of all epistemology: "Consciousness cannot leap over itself." ^{17On Analysis p.28 ff} Volkelt has called the judgment that the first most immediate truth is that "all our knowledge initially extends only to our ideas" the positivist principle of knowledge, and he regards as "eminently critical" only that epistemology which places this "principle at the head as the only fixed one at the beginning of philosophizing and then consistently thinks it through. ^{18Volkelt, Kants Erkenntnistheorie § 1.} In other philosophers one finds other assertions placed at the head of epistemology, e.g. that the real problem of epistemology consists in the question of the relationship between thinking and being and the possibility of a mediation between the two ^{19Dorner, Das menschliche Erkennen} or also in the question: how does the existing become conscious (Rehmke) etc. Kirchmann assumes two epistemological axioms: "what is perceived is" and "the contradiction is not. ^{20The doctrine of knowledge.} According to E. L. Fischer, cognition consists in the knowledge of an actual, real thing, ^{21Fundamental Questions p. 385,} and he leaves this dogma as unexamined as Göring, who claims something similar: "To cognize always means to recognize an existing thing, that is a fact which neither scepticism nor Kantian criticism can deny." ^{22System p. 257.} The latter two simply decree: that is cognition, without asking by what right this can happen.

[ 2 ] Even if these various assertions were correct, or led to correct problems, they could not be discussed at the beginning of epistemology. For they are, as quite definite insights, all already within the realm of cognition. When I say: my knowledge initially extends only to my ideas, this is a very definite judgment of knowledge. Through this proposition I add a predicate to the world given to me, namely existence in the form of imagination. But how am I to know before all cognition that the things given to me are conceptions?

[ 3 ] We will best convince ourselves of the correctness of the assertion that this proposition must not be placed at the head of epistemology if we follow the path that the human mind must take in order to arrive at it. The proposition has become almost an integral part of the whole of modern scientific consciousness. The considerations that have pushed it towards it can be found in a fairly complete systematic compilation in the first section of Ed. v. Hartmann's work: "Das Grundproblem der Erkenntnistheorie". What is presented in it can thus serve as a kind of guide when one sets oneself the task of discussing all the reasons that can lead to that assumption.

[ 4 ] These reasons are physical, psycho-physical, physiological and actually philosophical.

[ 5 ] By observing the phenomena that take place in our environment, for example when we perceive sound, the physicist arrives at the assumption that there is nothing in these phenomena that bears even the remotest resemblance to what we directly perceive as sound. Outside, in the space surrounding us, there are only longitudinal vibrations of bodies and air. From this it is concluded that what we call sound or tone in ordinary life is merely a subjective reaction of our organism to that wave motion. Similarly, we find that light and color or heat are purely subjective. The phenomena of color dispersion, refraction, interference and polarization teach us that the above-mentioned qualities of sensation in outer space correspond to certain transverse vibrations which we feel compelled to attribute partly to bodies and partly to an immeasurably fine, elastic fluid, the ether. Furthermore, certain phenomena in the physical world force the physicist to abandon the belief in the continuity of objects in space and to attribute them to systems of the smallest parts (molecules, atoms) whose sizes are immeasurably small in relation to their distances. From this it is concluded that all action of bodies on each other takes place through empty space and is therefore a true actio in distans. Physics believes itself justified in assuming that the effect of bodies on our sense of touch and heat does not occur through direct contact, because there must always be a certain, albeit small, distance between the skin area touching the body and the body itself. This means that what we feel as hardness or warmth of the body, for example, are only reactions of our tactile and thermal nerve end organs to the molecular forces of the body acting through empty space.

[ 6 ] In addition to these considerations of the physicist, there are those of the psycho-physicist, which find their expression in the doctrine of specific sensory energies. J. Müller has shown that each sense can only be affected in the way peculiar to it, conditioned by its organization, and that it always reacts in the same way, whatever external impression is exerted on it. If the optic nerve is stimulated, we feel light, regardless of whether it is pressure or electric current or light that acts on the nerve. On the other hand, the same external processes produce quite different sensations depending on whether they are perceived by this or that sense. From this it has been concluded that there is only one kind of process in the external world, namely movement, and that the diversity of the world we perceive is essentially a reaction of our senses to these processes. According to this view, we do not perceive the external world as such, but merely the subjective sensations it triggers in us.

[ 7 ] In addition to the considerations of physics, there are also those of physiology. The former pursues the phenomena occurring outside our organism which correspond to our perceptions; the latter seeks to investigate the processes in man's own body which take place while a certain sensory quality is triggered in us. Physiology teaches that the epidermis is completely insensitive to stimuli from the outside world. If, for example, the end organs of our tactile nerves on the periphery of the body are to be affected by the influences of the outside world, the vibrational process, which lies outside our body, must first be propagated through the epidermis. In the case of the sense of hearing and sight, moreover, the external process of movement is modified by a series of organs in the sensory organs before it reaches the nerve. This affection of the end organs must now be conducted through the nerve to the central organ, and only here can that take place whereby sensation is produced on the basis of purely mechanical processes in the brain. It is clear that through these transformations which the stimulus exerted on the sense organs undergoes, it is so completely transformed that every trace of similarity between the first influence on the senses and the sensation which finally appears in consciousness must be obliterated. Hartmann expresses the result of this consideration in the following words: "This content of consciousness originally consists of sensations with which the soul reacts reflexively to the states of movement of its uppermost brain center, but which have not the slightest resemblance to the molecular states of movement through which they are exercised."

[ 8 ] Whoever thinks this train of thought through completely to the end must admit that, if it is correct, not even the slightest remnant of what can be called external existence would be contained in the content of our consciousness.

[ 9 ] Hartmann adds to the physical and physiological objections to so-called "naive realism" what he calls philosophical objections in the true sense of the word. In a logical examination of the first two objections, we notice that we can basically only arrive at the result indicated if we start from the existence and coherence of external things as assumed by ordinary naive consciousness and then examine how this external world can enter our consciousness in our organization. We have seen that every trace of such an external world is lost to us on the way from the sensory impression to the entry into consciousness, and in the latter nothing remains but our ideas. We must therefore assume that the image of the external world which we really have is built up by the soul on the basis of the material of sensation. First, a spatial picture of the world is constructed from the sensations of sight and touch, into which the sensations of the other senses are then inserted. If we find ourselves compelled to think of a certain complex of sensations as coherent, we arrive at the concept of substance, which we regard as its carrier. If we notice that sensory qualities in a substance disappear and others reappear, we attribute this to a change in the phenomenal world regulated by the law of causality. Thus, according to this view, our whole world picture is composed of subjective sensory content, which is ordered by our own soul activity. Hartmann says: "What the subject perceives are therefore always only modifications of his own mental states and nothing else." ^{23The fundamental problem of epistemology, §. 37.}

[ 10 ] Let us now ask ourselves: how do we arrive at such a conviction? The skeleton of the train of thought is as follows: If an external world exists, it is not perceived by us as such, but is transformed by our organization into an imaginary world. We are dealing here with a presupposition which, if pursued consistently, cancels itself out. But is this train of thought suitable to justify any conviction? Are we entitled to regard the world view given to us as a subjective conceptual content because the assumption of naive consciousness, strictly thought through, leads to this view? After all, our aim is to prove this assumption itself to be invalid. Then it would have to be possible for an assertion to prove false and yet for the result to which it leads to be correct. This can always happen somewhere; but the result can then never be regarded as proven from that assertion.

[ 11 ] The view of the world that accepts the reality of the world view immediately given to us as something that cannot be doubted or taken for granted is usually called naive realism. The opposite view, on the other hand, which takes this world picture merely for the content of our consciousness, is called transcendental idealism. We can thus also summarize the result of the preceding considerations in the following words: Transcendental idealism proves its correctness by operating with the means of naive realism, which it strives to refute. It is justified if naive realism is false; but the falsity is only proven with the help of the false view itself. For anyone who realizes this, there is nothing left but to leave the path that is taken here in order to arrive at one view of the world and to take another. But should this be done on a trial and error basis until we happen to find what is right? Ed. v. Hartmann is of this opinion, however, when he believes that he has demonstrated the validity of his epistemological standpoint by the fact that it explains world phenomena, while the others do not. According to this thinker, the individual worldviews engage in a kind of battle for existence, and the one that proves itself best in this battle is ultimately accepted as the winner. But such a procedure seems inadmissible to us because there could well be several hypotheses that lead equally satisfactorily to the explanation of world phenomena. Therefore, we would rather stick to the above train of thought to refute naive realism and see where its shortcomings actually lie. After all, naïve realism is the view from which all people start. For this reason alone, it is advisable to begin the correction with it. Once we have realized why it must be flawed, we will be led onto the right path with a completely different degree of certainty than if we simply try to do so at random.

[ 12 ] The subjectivism outlined above is based on a thinking processing of certain facts. It therefore presupposes that, from an actual starting point, correct convictions can be obtained through logical thinking (logical combination of certain observations). However, the right to such an application of our thinking is not examined from this point of view. And therein lies its weakness. While naïve realism starts from the untested assumption that the content of experience perceived by us has objective reality, the characterized standpoint starts from the equally untested conviction that one can arrive at scientifically justified convictions through the application of thought. In contrast to naïve realism, this point of view can be called naïve rationalism. In order to justify this terminology, we would like to make a brief comment on the concept of the "naive". A. Doring attempts to define this concept more precisely in his essay "On the Concept of Naive Realism". ^{24Philosophische Monatshefte Vol. XXVI, Heidelberg 1890, p. 390.} He says: "The concept of naivety denotes, as it were, the zero point on the scale of reflection on one's own behavior. In terms of content, naivety can certainly do the right thing, because although it is without reflection and therefore uncritical or uncritical, this lack of reflection and criticism only excludes the objective certainty of the right thing; it includes the possibility and danger of error, but by no means the necessity of it. There is a naivety of feeling and willing, as well as of imagining and thinking in the broadest sense of the latter word, furthermore a naivety of the expressions of these inner states in contrast to the repression or modification of them brought about by consideration and reflection. Naivety is, at least consciously, not influenced by the traditional, the learned and the prescribed, it is in all areas what the root word nativus expresses, the unconscious, the impulsive, the instinctive, the demonic. "Based on these sentences, we want to define the concept of the naive a little more precisely. In all activity that we accomplish, two things come into consideration: the activity itself and the knowledge of its lawfulness. We can be completely absorbed in the former without asking about the latter. The artist who does not know the laws of his work in a reflective form, but practises them according to feeling, according to sensation, is in this case. We call him naive. But there is a kind of self-observation that wonders about the legality of its own actions, and which exchanges the naivety just described for the awareness that it knows exactly the scope and justification of what it is doing. We want to call this critical. We believe this best captures the meaning of this term, as it has become naturalized in philosophy with more or less clear awareness since Kant. Critical prudence is therefore the opposite of naivety. We call a behavior critical that takes possession of the laws of its own activity in order to get to know their certainty and limits. However, epistemology can only be a critical science. After all, its object is an eminently subjective human activity: cognition, and what it wants to explain is the legality of cognition. All naivety must therefore be excluded from this science. It must see its strength precisely in the fact that it accomplishes that which many practical minds boast they have never done, namely "thinking about thinking".